The present invention relates generally to an apparatus for turing out of round components of rotating mechanisms, and more specifically to a hand held tool holder which includes a weighted body portion with a passageway therethrough, a generally flat grindstone protruding from one end of the passageway, and provision for attachment of a vacuum source to a second end of the passageway.
An early approach to resurfacing a rotating component such as a commutator, depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 1,566,164, shows a hand held device which utilizes sand paper as an abrasive for cleaning the commutator of a generator. Another early hand held tool for resurfacing and cleaning of commutators, depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 1,763,561, also utilizes sand paper. The problem with hand held resurfacing tools such as these has been, until the advent of the instant invention, that they tend to follow the surface of the out of round component and only polish its surface without truing the component by making it concentric again.
More recently, and prior to the instant invention, devices utilizing grind stones for resurfacing and truing out of round commutators and the like required either that a portion of the piece of equipment having the out of round component be disassembled or that a complex grinder be mounted thereto. In either case, the process of resurfacing and truing of commutators and the like has been time consuming and costly. An arrangement for resurfacing a commutator with a grinder mounted thereto is depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 2,784,537. This arrangement is fixed to a stationary portion of the piece of equipment and includes a vacuum arrangement for the removal of dust produced by the grinding process. Another arrangement, depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 4,536,915, shows a complex grinder utilized for resurfacing of rotating portions of a motor in a railroad engine and includes provisions for the removal of dust as well as movement of the grinding mechanism by a parallelogramic linkage and a carriage rolling in a pit beneath the railway track on which the railroad engine is supported.
Clearly, as will become more apparent from an understanding of the instant invention, none of the prior art arrangements for resurfacing and/or truing out of round components of rotating mechanisms anticipate the instant invention as taught herein.